142 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF 



" If we now continue to observe the numbers presented by 

 the wheel, we shall find, that for a hundred, or even for a 

 thousand terms, they continue to follow the new law relating 

 to the triangular numbers ; but after watching them for 2761 

 terms, we find that this law fails in the case of the 2762nd 

 term. 



" If we continue to observe, we shall discover another law 

 then coming into action, which also is dependent, but in a 

 different manner, on triangular numbers. This will continue 

 through about 1430 terms, when a new law is again intro- 

 duced, which extends over about 950 terms, and this, too, like 

 all its predecessors, fails, and gives place to other laws, which 

 appear at different intervals. 



" Now it must be observed that the law that eacli number 

 presented by the engine is greater by unity than the preceding 

 number, which law the observer had deduced from an induc- 

 tion of an hundred million instances, ivas not the true law that 

 regulated its action, and that the occurrence of the number 

 100,010,002 at the 100,000,002nd term was as necessary a 

 consequence of the original adjustment, and might have been as 

 fully foreknown at the commencement, as was the regular succes- 

 sion of any one of the intermediate numbers to its immediate 

 antecedent. The same remark applies to the next apparent 

 deviation from the new law, which was founded on an induc- 

 tion of 2761 terms, and also to the succeeding law, with this 

 limitation only that whilst their consecutive introduction at 

 various definite intervals, is a necessary consequence of the 

 mechanical structure of the engine, our knowledge of analysis 

 does not enable us to predict the periods themselves at which 

 the more distant laws will be introduced." 



It is not difficult to apply the philosophy of this passage to 

 the question under consideration. Let us remember that the 

 gestation of a single organism is the work of but a few days, 

 weeks, or months ; but the gestation (so to speak) of a whole 

 creation is a matter involving the enormous spaces of time 

 which have been described. Suppose that an ephemeron, 



spending to any term can always be placed in the form of a triangle ; for 

 instance : 



6 10 



